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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26969446">The Empire on Which Peace Never Rests</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant'>virdant</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dark, Imperialism, Mandalorian Critical, Mandalorian Culture, Slavery, Tatooine Slave Culture Critical, Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:41:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,118</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26969446</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It is the duty, of Mandalorians, to take those with the Right Stuff into the Tribe. </i>
</p><p>  <i>Mandalore’s strength, Jaster says in one of his speeches, lies in her people. In her warriors. And anybody can be a warrior, as long as they have the Right Stuff.</i></p><p>  <i>He does not say, exactly, what Right Stuff is or who has it. But they all know. It is the orphans whose parents had been slaughtered when they are too young to fully understand, so they do not question their place in the Tribe. It is the children full of passion and rage, so that they may direct that fury against their enemies.</i></p><p>--</p><p>What does honor mean, when your culture is born with conquest in its bones?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>204</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Empire on Which Peace Never Rests</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i ran a poll in discord, and this is what won. thanks to my weird hour crew for sitting in sounding-board with me. :)</p><p>a reminder: this is mando culture critical and TSC critical. If this will upset you, please exercise your right to use the back button. Thank you. :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jango hears the sound of the storytellers—too muffled to understand the individual words, but he recognizes the roiling sounds of the stories that his family had seeded among the slaves generations ago. </p><p>There is a rhythm, a ritual to the stories. Jango knows enough about them: the stories, the storytellers. There are always those willing to tell the stories, willing to listen to the other slaves, willing to whisper the secrets from one group to another. There are always those willing to tell the stories that Jango’s ancestors wrote long ago.</p><p>An empire is not run on the backs of its warriors. It is run on the backs of its slaves. And the first lesson his ancestors learned was to never let the slaves know that single fact.</p><p>Keep the slaves docile. Keep them obedient. Let them waste their hope yearning for a savior to free them. </p><p>Take away everything that made them free, and give them only that which makes them a slave.</p><p>Jango stands outside the slaves quarters and listens: to the steady rise and fall of voices as they tell the stories of the God who would Save Them, and he knows that physical chains are easy to break, but the chains of a story are much more insidious.</p><p>Mandalorians bind their slaves with chains so light that the slaves do not even realize they are wearing them. They tie their slaves to Mandalore with more than iron and steel. They bind them so fast that they do not even think of running, anymore. That they are nothing more than slaves, nebulous and amorphous, to be used and passed through and used.</p><p>Better to be a slave and live. And a storyteller finishes their story, leans forward and says, “I tell you this story to save your life.”</p><p>And the slaves, all of them, the slaves that Mandalore will use to achieve glory, the slaves that will give Mandalore the strength to spread their power throughout the galaxy, they echo as one: “I will remember.”</p>
<hr/><p>It is the duty, of Mandalorians, to take those with the Right Stuff into the Tribe. </p><p>Mandalore’s strength, Jaster says in one of his speeches, lies in her people. In her warriors. And anybody can be a warrior, as long as they have the Right Stuff.</p><p>He does not say, exactly, what Right Stuff is or who has it. But they all know. It is the orphans whose parents had been slaughtered when they are too young to fully understand, so they do not question their place in the Tribe. It is the children full of passion and rage, so that they may direct that fury against their enemies.</p><p>It is our duty, Jaster says. We <em>must</em> go forth. Let us raze villages so that we may find those with the strength to be Mandalorian. Let us conquer planets so that we may pluck their best and brightest for our tribe. </p><p>It is our duty, he says. It is our right. We must restore the glory of Mandalore.</p>
<hr/><p>Satine stands before the Senate and makes a plea.</p><p>“He will stop at nothing,” she says. “He will never stop.”</p><p>She stands before the Senate and says, “There is no future for Mandalore like this. Our children die for conquest. Our fields lie ravaged. He steals from the mouths of babes to feed his armies, and we can do nothing to stop him.”</p><p>She spreads her hands out: they are empty, because she has nothing. She has come with nothing but herself. “He will never stop,” she says, because she is Mandalorian, and she knows that a Mandalorian’s appetite for war is never slaked. “He will not content himself with the Outer Rim. He will conquer and conquer until he brings war to your doorstep. That is the Mandalorian way. It is our religion, it is our creed. It is all we know, and it is all we <em>will</em> know, unless something changes.”</p><p>She says: “I am asking for assistance.”</p><p>She says: “I am asking for the people of Mandalore.”</p><p>She says: “I am asking for my people.”</p>
<hr/><p>Obi-Wan stands with his saber drawn on Galidraan, watching as the Mandalorians come in mass. They come with fanatical zeal. They come with fury and anger. They come and come, and they will stop at nothing until they have added another planet to their Empire.</p><p>He faces Mandalorian after Mandalorian, in their helmets and armor. They come in hoards, and he can hear their screaming in the Force, fury and rage twisted into a bludgeon to conquer. It is all he can do, to give them a merciful death.</p><p>Galidraan is just another planet in the Outer Rim. Just another planet that the Mand’alor has set his eyes on. But Galidraan asked for aid, so the Jedi are here.</p><p>You come for war, he can hear, in the burn of blasterfire. You come with your swords drawn, and you bring violence in your wake. But to do nothing in the face of the rising tide of Mandalore is violence. To let Mandalore spread their roots in the surrounding planets, to strip them of their resources and people—to stand by and do nothing is violence.</p><p>There are not many Jedi in the Galaxy—not enough to solve all the ills that exist. But they can see the rising tide of violence, can see the pattern that the Mandalorians are weaving.</p><p>They will stop at nothing. They will continue to fight, continue to conquer. They will say they take in foundlings, and will not say that they are the ones who slaughtered their family around them. They will say that any can be Mandalorian, and will not say that only the best and brightest wear armor, and the rest wear chains as they toil in dead soil. They will say that they are just and honorable. They will say they want only to fight honorably, even when their opponent does not care to. They will say they wish only to live their lives as they see fit: with blaster and armor, with an unslakable lust for violence. </p><p>They stripped their planet to the bones, and they will continue to strip the galaxy of all they can hold in their hands, and for what?</p><p>Obi-Wan stands with his saber drawn. He deflects blasterfire, he digs his heels into the soil and makes a stand.</p><p>For people to choose who they are. For people to grow up where they are born, or to travel across the galaxy searching for new homes. For people to live their lives as free sentients, to pursue their dreams without fear.</p><p>He is a Jedi, and he will fight for peace.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <s>you ever get tired of the perpetual glorification of a violent culture originated by a fascist?</s>
</p><p> </p><p>want to yell about star wars with me? here's how you can find me:</p><ul>

<li>find me in salt town</li> 
<li>Follow me on twitter <a href="http://www.twitter.com/virdant/">@virdant</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://twitter.com/virdant/status/1315626370353885186">Like &amp; retweet on twitter</a></li>
  <li>Comment and kudo below</li>
</ul></blockquote></div></div>
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